


Nothing But You

by JellyDishes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, yes incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JellyDishes/pseuds/JellyDishes
Summary: The night of Ben’s death, Klaus went to bed late. He'd snuck into dad’s liquor cabinet and helped himself to a few cups (more than a few) of whatever was closest at hand that seemed likely to make his sleep long and without dreams. When he fell asleep, everything was soft and spinning.When he woke up, the world stopped spinning on its axis entirely, or it felt like that to him. Because this was the night he first saw Ben.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 14
Kudos: 68





	Nothing But You

The night of Ben’s death, Klaus went to bed late. He'd snuck into dad’s liquor cabinet and helped himself to a few cups (more than a few) of whatever was closest at hand that seemed likely to make his sleep long and without dreams. When he fell asleep, everything was soft and spinning. 

When he woke up, the world stopped spinning on its axis entirely, or it felt like that to him. Because this was the night he first saw Ben. 

If he'd expected anything, it would have been blood, and blame, anger and a refusal to accept what had happened to him, the same as every other ghost. Instead, Ben was quiet. The only way Klaus knew he was there at all at first was that the quality of the air changed. It felt expectant, like the air just before it rained, or when a sibling was waiting for you to notice them. 

"Go _away,_ Luther,” Klaus sniffled and scrubbed his face impatiently on his hand. “I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

"...could you talk about it with me?”

Klaus went utterly still. Slowly, so slowly it barely registered even to himself, he turned and saw Ben standing by the foot of his bed. He was wearing his uniform and domino mask and a shaky smile. What he wasn't wearing was any of the blood he'd been saturated with when he died, or the holes, or- 

Klaus tore his gaze back up to Ben’s face. “Oh, Ben,” he tried to say, but his voice came out cracked and weak. “What did they do to you?”

Ben started to say several things, before giving up and sitting beside Klaus. The mattress did not bend under his weight because he didn't have any, but if Klaus tried really hard, he might be able to convince himself that if he stretched his hand out just a bit he could touch Ben’s. 

He didn't try. 

“They killed me, Klaus,” Ben said in a quiet, barely heard voice, as if it was going to be lost just as completely as the rest of him. 

Klaus’s face crumpled, even more when Ben went on, “I felt it happen.”

“Stop,” Klaus whispered. 

"I felt it happen and I was so scared, I thought that I'd never see any of you again, that I was gone, but-”

“No!”

“But Klaus,” Ben insisted, turning to see him like he was trying to convince him that the others had been lying and there really was a Santa Klaus, and Klaus curled up in on himself. “If you'll just listen, I-”

“No, Ben, I can't _take_ that right now!” His thin chest was heaving, drawing in breaths that didn't feel like enough because he still felt like he couldn't breathe. “I watched you _die today,_ and then I had to listen to dad tell us how weak we were for letting it happen. You think I want to hear how it-” He clasped a hand over his mouth and shook. 

“That's not what I was going to say.”

Klaus wanted, more than anything, to be able to hug Ben or cry or go back to sleep so he wouldn't have to look at the face of the brother he'd let die staring back at him. He shook his head back and forth again and again. 

“Klaus, _please_. I just wanted to say that I'm not mad, that... That it wasn't your fault, no matter what he says, I lo-”

Klaus lurched upright and out of his room. 

Ben kept pace easily, his feet not making the slightest sound despite walking on the floorboards that always creaked. “Where are you going?” Ben’s face was drawn with worry. Klaus tried not to look at him, at the way that you could have been fooled into thinking nothing at all was wrong, if you didn't know. If you hadn't seen. 

He didn't answer, but it became obvious pretty quickly that he was going back to the liquor cabinet. 

“Klaus, this isn't fair. I'm the one that died, will you just listen to me?” Ben was getting frustrated. If he'd been alive he might have been near tears, the way he always did when he was angry, but as it was, his face was dry and his eyes burned when Klaus briefly made the mistake of looking at him. 

Klaus started loudly singing. It didn't matter what the song was, so long as it drowned out the voice that none of the others who came grumbling awake could hear. 

***

It was almost two weeks before he talked to Ben again, and when he did, he whirled on him without warning. 

Perhaps it wasn't accurate to say that they hadn't been talking at all, because Ben had been talking to him this whole time. Attempting to soothe him when he cried or got angry, glowering at their father, any number of things, he just… couldn't bring himself to talk back. 

Not until two weeks in, when he glared at a startled Ben, who’d been partway through saying for the upteenth time that he wasn't mad at him. “Just shut _up,_ will you? You keep saying that like it matters! Ben, you _died_. If there's any time for some righteous fury on your own behalf, it's now. Get mad at me or us or him, express yourself!” He raised his arms and let them flop back down with a burst of strained laughter. “Be selfish! Get mad! Go full poltergeist and wreck our shit! Do _something_ , because I can't just look at you standing there like it was me, like there's anything _I_ have to complain about-” 

Klaus choked. He turned away from that familiar expression on that devastatingly familiar, unmarked face, pressing a hand over his mouth to hold back a sob. It might have been better if Bed looked the way he had when he died. At least then there would be visual, damning evidence of his failure. It would have been a relief. Instead, there was just Ben, the way he'd always been, saying the same old things, and it was going to crush his heart. “...You left me,” was all he managed to say. “You left me and all I have left are their faces, staring at me.”

“I'm still here, aren't I?” Ben’s voice was soft, the way it had always been when Klaus was scared or hurt, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. “It's like when we were kids-”

"We’re still kids,” Klaus started to say, only to trail off into silence. He opened his eyes, only to wipe at them. 

Ben carried on determinedly, “...and things are tough or scary, we just-” He lifted his hand to curl through Klaus’. When it instead passed through his voice faltered. “We just say-”

"We're puzzle pieces,” Klaus said down at that hand, one he knew better than his own some days. It was a saying they'd heard Five and Vanya say sometimes, but it hadn't been quite right for them, not at first. “And-” He sucked on a long, slow breath that shook less on the exhale. “And not even from the same puzzle. Isn't it stupid, how we shouldn't fit together at all, couldn't do it again if you tried, but we do, Ben, we-”

“We can't get unstuck now.”

“That's right,” Ben said, stepping closer. “It might not be the same anymore, but you aren't alone. Not ever. And neither am I.” His smile shook, but held firm. “And any time either of us forget and get lost…”

“The other will be right behind. Right?” It was said on automatic, like asking for the answer to a question asked during a bedtime story, and the answer came just as always. 

“You'll never be fast enough to leave me behind.”


End file.
